


We All Fall

by AngelQueen



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Semi-Explicit sexual content, Spoilers, episode-related
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-08
Updated: 2011-04-08
Packaged: 2017-10-17 18:45:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/180042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AngelQueen/pseuds/AngelQueen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the past they had been lovers, but his first loyalty had always been to Camelot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We All Fall

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimer:** _Merlin_ is property of the BBC and Shine. I make no claim on it and write this purely for my own entertainment and the entertainment of others. No copyright infringement intended.
> 
> Spoilers for 3x12 and 3x13 _The Coming of Arthur, Part One_ and _Part Two_.

_She was the most beautiful woman in the room, and he could tell by the twitching on her lips and the sparkle in her eyes that she knew it. She stood to the left of the king, offering her own words of welcome to all those who were attending the festivities._

 _When it came to his turn to speak a few words to the king and the prince, Leon hoped he acquitted himself well enough. He did not consider himself the most eloquent of men. Still, the prince grinned at him and even the king cracked a faint, pleased smile. Then, he turned to her._

 _She smiled at him. “Sir Leon, welcome to court,” she said, holding her hand out to him._

 _He took it in his own larger one, and bowed over it. “Thank you, Lady Morgana,” he replied. “I am most honored.”_

 _They released one another, as was proper, but Leon was certain that their fingers both lingered over one another for a moment longer than was strictly appropriate. Fortunately, neither the king nor the prince noticed._

* * *

Leon stumbled back into Camelot with an immortal army on his heels. His men were dead, and the kingdom’s forces had not been this low on numbers since the dragon’s assault nearly two years before. Still, the king would not hear of accepting defeat. The knights were to defend the castle at all costs. They were to leave the lower town to its fate.

The king was sending them to their deaths, and they would go. It was their duty, to stand tall and unflinching in the face of death. Duty was their lifeblood, and they would go.

As the most senior knight present in Camelot - no one knew where Prince Arthur was, nor did they dare ask, not now - Leon was placed in charge of the gathered forces. As he directed the arming and the defenses, hurrying through the corridors of the keep, he kept one eye out, hoping to catch a glimpse of her.

She never appeared.

* * *

 _Morgana rolled her eyes at him. “Sir Knight, I assure you,” she said, “I am most capable of defending myself. I have had the proper instruction since I was six.”_

 _Leon still hesitated. “My lady, surely the king disapproves -”_

 _She snorted. “The king,” she interrupted in a tone that was what most people would consider scandalously disrespectful, “would have me lock myself in my chambers and sew my life away. I do not feel the need to oblige him.” Morgana stared at him, a challenge in her eye. “Now, sir, I ask you again - will you engage?” She held up her sword._

 _Leon gazed back at her, feeling any further protests die on his lips. “Very well.”_

* * *

It was a slaughter, as he knew it would be. The walls and barred doors afforded them some protection within the keep, but when these inhuman men scaled the walls or battered the doors in, the knights and guards had no protection. They were mortal men fighting immortal forces.

Leon fought fiercely - he would allow himself to do nothing less - but knew that the battle was already lost. So to did the others, it seemed.

“Leon,” Bors shouted as he struggled to hold off three opponents on his own, “get the king and the Lady Morgana out! Go!”

The shout was taken up by several other knights in the vicinity, a few even crowding around him to push him back toward the stairs that led into the castle. Everything in him revolted against leaving his fellow knights, his brothers, to fight on alone against an unstoppable enemy, but they were right. The king and Morgana had to be evacuated, no matter the cost. He raced inside.

Along the way, he grabbed the attention of two guards and ordered them to accompany him. When they reached the throne room, he found the king pacing. There was no sign of Morgana. “Majesty,” Leon said urgently, “we must go!”

“What is happening??” Uther demanded. “I —”

“My lord,” Leon cut him off, grabbing the king by the shoulder and hustling him toward the door, “we must go now! Where is Lady Morgana?”

“In her chambers,” the king replied, “but —”

The sound of the main doors bursting open interrupted him. Leon didn’t hesitate. With the two guards at his back, he pushed the king toward the higher levels of the castle. They would go to Morgana’s chambers, gather her, and then use the servants’ passages to make their escape.

When they reached her door, Leon didn’t even bother to knock. Throwing the door open, he stormed inside, saying, “My lady, we must go now —” Leon cut himself off when he found that Morgana wasn’t alone. He saw Gwen first. Her presence was hardly unusual, but the fact that she was huddled in the corner, her eyes wide with fear, certainly was.

The third occupant of the room was a handsome woman with hair as bright and fair as Arthur’s. Clad in a lavender satin cloak, she turned to face them. Leon thought she was familiar —

“You!” Uther roared, pulling his sword. “Get away from her!”

The woman smirked at him, and Leon felt something inside him twist. He knew that smile…

“Ah, Uther,” she said, “how kind of you to join us.” Her eyes flashed, and Uther and the guards were thrown back, smashing against the wall of the chamber.

Leon reacted immediately, lunging forward, his sword raised. He tried to place himself between the woman and Morgana, who was strangely unarmed, but was suddenly stopped dead in his tracks. He could not move.

“Ah ah, Leon. I’m afraid I cannot allow you to harm my sister.” It was not the fair-haired woman who spoke.

His eyes turned to Morgana, who did not look alarmed at all. Instead, it was triumph that was written all over her features. Then, just like the other woman, her eyes flashed. Leon felt himself be thrown back. He hit the wall with a sickening crunch, and remembered nothing else after that.

* * *

 _Her lips were like fire, trailing a blaze along his jaw. Her fingers gripped his hair in a tight, painful grip._

 _He pushed her up against the stone wall, trying to take everything in everything that was her – the scents and oils she used, the damp curls that clung to her pale neck, the little sounds she made in the back of her throat when his fingers brushed a particularly sensitive patch of skin on her side, and more._

 _They were neither gentle with one another; the time for chivalry had long passed them. She pulled him to her, marking him, staking a claim that would show to any other woman who might see his body that he was hers. He took pleasure in returning the favor, leaving her trembling and moaning as his fingers danced along the secret place between her legs._

 _They played with fire, and relished in the burning._

 _Neither of them could have known that she would vanish a week later without a trace, the prisoner of a sorceress._

* * *

When Leon regained consciousness, he was alone. Groaning, he sat up, and promptly wished he hadn’t. He leaned back against the wall, keeping his eyes shut as he fought off the waves of nausea.

“Leon?”

He opened his eyes – slowly – and turned his head. He took note of the barred door, and saw that he was in the dungeons. Peering past the bars, he saw Bors just across the way, in another cell. “Bors…”

“Good,” the other knight said, relieved. “You’re alive. We feared you might yet die.”

“What,” Leon paused, his throat dry, “what happened?”

“They brought you and the king down some hours ago,” Bors explained. “He is in the first cell, while we are back here. Keeping us as separated as possible, I gather.”

Leon nodded carefully as he thought back to what had happened. He’d gone to Morgana’s chambers with the king, intending to get them out of the castle and out of Camelot, only the sorceress had already been there. She’d attacked the king and then —

Morgana. It had been Morgana who had attacked him. Not the sorceress. What in the gods’ names was going on? He asked as much to Bors.

The other knight hesitated, but then spoke. “The Lady Morgana has taken control of the city. She was proclaimed Queen of Camelot not an hour ago, by right of her being the king’s daughter.” His tone was laden with disgust. “You could hear her men cheering in the throne room from here.”

Leon closed his eyes. He almost wished he hadn’t asked. Taking a deep breath, he forced himself to ignore the terrible pain in his chest and asked, “How many of us are left?”

“Eight, including you.”

Eight. Eight men were all that was left of the once proud knights of Camelot.

They’d been brought down by the kingdom’s first lady, by the king’s own flesh and blood.

* * *

 _It took nearly a year to find her again, and even then, it was more of a matter of stumbling upon her than actually intentionally seeking her out._

 _Leon had no expectations of continuing what they’d had before Morgana had disappeared. She had spent a year in the hands of bandits, the worst sort of men – he was uncertain that she would want any men near her. He was just relieved that she had been returned home safely._

 _He made an effort to be as courteous and kind as he knew how whenever he encountered her. Morgana returned his civility, but he could see how different she was. There was something distant in her eyes, and the fire that had been there, the fire that had drawn him in, was stifled. There was something cold, otherworldly about her that had not been there before. She clung to Uther more often than not, and the king was even more protective and doting than he had been toward her in the past._

 _Morgana was not who she had once been. Leon tried not to let it show how much he mourned._

* * *

Leon spent a week languishing in the dungeons, subsisting on what little food and water his captors afforded him. They kept him apart from the other knights, and he caught only the briefest glimpses of the king. He tried to take hope in the fact that his sovereign was still alive.

When the guards finally dragged him out of his cell and to the throne room, he hardly knew what to expect. Summary execution, perhaps?

She was sitting on Uther’s throne when he was hauled into the room, the sorceress – Morgause, her half-sister, if what the servant who whispered news to him when she brought him food was to be believed – standing at her right hand. His escorts roughly shoved him to his knees at her feet.

“Tell me, Sir Leon,” she said, her tone full of arrogant self-satisfaction, “what do you think of the first week of my reign?”

He looked up at her stonily, refusing to answer. Her eyes sparkled, much as they had when he had first met her, but Leon was still alert to the difference. This cold, smug creature was not the woman he had known.

She continued her interrogation, demanding he shift his allegiance from the Pendragons to her. He refused. Even when she later threatened him and all the other knights with immediate death by firing squad, Leon remained proud.

“Long live the King!” he shouted, which was promptly echoed by the other men around him. Even from a distance, he saw the flash of fury cross her features.

In the past they had been lovers, but his first loyalty had always been to Camelot.


End file.
